Contemporary Jewish Diaspora in Global Context: Human Development Correlates of Population Trends

Abstract

AT THE TURN OF THE Z2St century, international political and military interactions, socioeconomic development and transactions, and, not less significantly, cultural patterns and communication networks reached a definitive stage of globalization. A short span of years witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Soviet Union as a major global power, the reunion of Germany, the revival of religious fundamentalism, particularly within Islam, the return of ethnic cleansing in Europe and Africa, new waves of mass international migration, the beginning but also the stoppage of a peace process in the Middle East, the Catholic Church's improvement of its relationship to the Jewish people and its historic recognition of the State of Israel, the European monetary union, and also the rise of the internet and other global and regional societal changes. Transformations of the global polity, economy, and communications deeply and rapidly affected the daily life, identity, and boundary definition of nations, communities, and individuals in world society, and among world Jewry within the broader context.